Here we are again. Syria’s government has killed dozens more of its own citizens, and what does its old ally, Russia, do? It obstructs a substantive UN Security Council response. This has long since become a predictable story, but it raises a fundamental question: what is Russia’s place in today’s world?

Russian membership in western organisations is not exactly yielding positive results. The G7+1 cannot become a G8 until Russia begins to act like a mature free-market democracy. It’s hard to work up much optimism on that score with President Vladimir Putin claiming that recent protests in his country are choreographed by western spies and that he couldn’t make it to the latest G8 summit at Camp David because he was busy putting together his new cabinet – always a complicated chore in an authoritarian country. Mr Putin’s absence made little difference as discussion turned to Afghanistan and the eurozone, where Russia can’t help, and to Iran and Syria, where Russia is part of the problem.

So if its government isn’t interested in western clubs, can we classify Russia as a dynamic emerging market? Not a chance. In China, a Communist party has engineered a complex, high-powered economic engine that has lifted the country from abject poverty to become the world’s second-largest economy. India has produced some of the world’s more innovative private sector companies. Brazil is now an increasingly self-confident democracy with a well-diversified economy and a growing international profile.

Russia, by contrast, has become an authoritarian state built on Mr Putin’s reputation as a tough guy and the export of oil, gas, other natural resources and little else. Corruption is endemic. Graft is a particular problem in most developing countries: Transparency International’s global corruption index ranks Turkey at 61st, Brazil at 73rd and China at 75th. Russia ranks far worse at 143rd.

In addition, much of Russia’s commercial elite still views the country as a wealth generator but not a long-term investment bet. Capital flight, a chronic problem, has reportedly accelerated since Mr Putin’s re-election in March. The country’s population is falling – because healthcare is poor, socially driven diseases such as alcoholism rampant and because well-educated Russians are leaving in search of better opportunities elsewhere. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia inherited 148m citizens. Today there are fewer than 142m. UN studies have warned that the population could fall by 30 per cent over the next four decades, with obvious implications for growth.

Are things improving? During Russia’s most recent Potemkin election campaign, Mr Putin spent more time bragging about the stability he established during his last stint as president than about any grand plans for the country’s future. Russia is also about to become less transparent as Mr Putin has formed a cabinet with reformers who may not have real power and brought administrative heavyweights on to his presidential staff. The risk is that policy will be made not in Russia’s ministries but behind closed doors inside the Kremlin.

Mitt Romney, the Republican party’s likely presidential nominee, recently referred to Russia as America’s “number one geopolitical foe”. That’s absurd, not because Russia isn’t increasingly antagonistic to US interests, but because it is becoming increasingly less relevant – as a political power or as an attractive emerging market. Russia’s fellow Bric nations may have no interest in dismissing Moscow from their club but the rest of us can (and should) stop speaking of Russia as if it belongs in this company.

There are those in Russia who argue that their country can become a modern European state rather than the “Eurasian nation” of Mr Putin’s dreams. These include some of the reformers around prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, much of Russia’s urban middle class, internet and social media-savvy young people, a new generation of entrepreneurs fed up with byzantine restrictions and regulations, intellectuals and much of the media. Members of all these groups want a democratic Russia with an innovative, modern economy driven by private sector ingenuity, and they have recently taken to the streets to make themselves heard.

For the moment, the Kremlin has managed to ignore these voices, acting like neither a Bric nor a G8 member in good standing. Washington should not make the same mistake. If US and European leaders genuinely want to build new ties with Moscow, these are the people they should be talking to.The writers are president of Eurasia Group and chairman of Roubini Global Economics

who gives a fuck. Russians know arabs will end killing each others or pissing the white man so badly that one day they ll have nukes raining on them. They dont give a fuck about arabs, they only care about their money. They seel them and chicoms shitty weapons.

Here we are again. Syria’s government has killed dozens more of its own citizens, and what does its old ally, Russia, do? It obstructs a substantive UN Security Council response. This has long since become a predictable story, but it raises a fundamental question: what is Russia’s place in today’s world?

Russian membership in western organisations is not exactly yielding positive results. The G7+1 cannot become a G8 until Russia begins to act like a mature free-market democracy. It’s hard to work up much optimism on that score with President Vladimir Putin claiming that recent protests in his country are choreographed by western spies and that he couldn’t make it to the latest G8 summit at Camp David because he was busy putting together his new cabinet – always a complicated chore in an authoritarian country. Mr Putin’s absence made little difference as discussion turned to Afghanistan and the eurozone, where Russia can’t help, and to Iran and Syria, where Russia is part of the problem.

So if its government isn’t interested in western clubs, can we classify Russia as a dynamic emerging market? Not a chance. In China, a Communist party has engineered a complex, high-powered economic engine that has lifted the country from abject poverty to become the world’s second-largest economy. India has produced some of the world’s more innovative private sector companies. Brazil is now an increasingly self-confident democracy with a well-diversified economy and a growing international profile.

Russia, by contrast, has become an authoritarian state built on Mr Putin’s reputation as a tough guy and the export of oil, gas, other natural resources and little else. Corruption is endemic. Graft is a particular problem in most developing countries: Transparency International’s global corruption index ranks Turkey at 61st, Brazil at 73rd and China at 75th. Russia ranks far worse at 143rd.

In addition, much of Russia’s commercial elite still views the country as a wealth generator but not a long-term investment bet. Capital flight, a chronic problem, has reportedly accelerated since Mr Putin’s re-election in March. The country’s population is falling – because healthcare is poor, socially driven diseases such as alcoholism rampant and because well-educated Russians are leaving in search of better opportunities elsewhere. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia inherited 148m citizens. Today there are fewer than 142m. UN studies have warned that the population could fall by 30 per cent over the next four decades, with obvious implications for growth.

Are things improving? During Russia’s most recent Potemkin election campaign, Mr Putin spent more time bragging about the stability he established during his last stint as president than about any grand plans for the country’s future. Russia is also about to become less transparent as Mr Putin has formed a cabinet with reformers who may not have real power and brought administrative heavyweights on to his presidential staff. The risk is that policy will be made not in Russia’s ministries but behind closed doors inside the Kremlin.

Mitt Romney, the Republican party’s likely presidential nominee, recently referred to Russia as America’s “number one geopolitical foe”. That’s absurd, not because Russia isn’t increasingly antagonistic to US interests, but because it is becoming increasingly less relevant – as a political power or as an attractive emerging market. Russia’s fellow Bric nations may have no interest in dismissing Moscow from their club but the rest of us can (and should) stop speaking of Russia as if it belongs in this company.

There are those in Russia who argue that their country can become a modern European state rather than the “Eurasian nation” of Mr Putin’s dreams. These include some of the reformers around prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, much of Russia’s urban middle class, internet and social media-savvy young people, a new generation of entrepreneurs fed up with byzantine restrictions and regulations, intellectuals and much of the media. Members of all these groups want a democratic Russia with an innovative, modern economy driven by private sector ingenuity, and they have recently taken to the streets to make themselves heard.

For the moment, the Kremlin has managed to ignore these voices, acting like neither a Bric nor a G8 member in good standing. Washington should not make the same mistake. If US and European leaders genuinely want to build new ties with Moscow, these are the people they should be talking to.The writers are president of Eurasia Group and chairman of Roubini Global Economics

Here we are again. Syria’s government has killed dozens more of its own citizens, and what does its old ally, Russia, do? It obstructs a substantive UN Security Council response. This has long since become a predictable story, but it raises a fundamental question: what is Russia’s place in today’s world?

Russian membership in western organisations is not exactly yielding positive results. The G7+1 cannot become a G8 until Russia begins to act like a mature free-market democracy. It’s hard to work up much optimism on that score with President Vladimir Putin claiming that recent protests in his country are choreographed by western spies and that he couldn’t make it to the latest G8 summit at Camp David because he was busy putting together his new cabinet – always a complicated chore in an authoritarian country. Mr Putin’s absence made little difference as discussion turned to Afghanistan and the eurozone, where Russia can’t help, and to Iran and Syria, where Russia is part of the problem.

So if its government isn’t interested in western clubs, can we classify Russia as a dynamic emerging market? Not a chance. In China, a Communist party has engineered a complex, high-powered economic engine that has lifted the country from abject poverty to become the world’s second-largest economy. India has produced some of the world’s more innovative private sector companies. Brazil is now an increasingly self-confident democracy with a well-diversified economy and a growing international profile.

Russia, by contrast, has become an authoritarian state built on Mr Putin’s reputation as a tough guy and the export of oil, gas, other natural resources and little else. Corruption is endemic. Graft is a particular problem in most developing countries: Transparency International’s global corruption index ranks Turkey at 61st, Brazil at 73rd and China at 75th. Russia ranks far worse at 143rd.

In addition, much of Russia’s commercial elite still views the country as a wealth generator but not a long-term investment bet. Capital flight, a chronic problem, has reportedly accelerated since Mr Putin’s re-election in March. The country’s population is falling – because healthcare is poor, socially driven diseases such as alcoholism rampant and because well-educated Russians are leaving in search of better opportunities elsewhere. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia inherited 148m citizens. Today there are fewer than 142m. UN studies have warned that the population could fall by 30 per cent over the next four decades, with obvious implications for growth.

Are things improving? During Russia’s most recent Potemkin election campaign, Mr Putin spent more time bragging about the stability he established during his last stint as president than about any grand plans for the country’s future. Russia is also about to become less transparent as Mr Putin has formed a cabinet with reformers who may not have real power and brought administrative heavyweights on to his presidential staff. The risk is that policy will be made not in Russia’s ministries but behind closed doors inside the Kremlin.

Mitt Romney, the Republican party’s likely presidential nominee, recently referred to Russia as America’s “number one geopolitical foe”. That’s absurd, not because Russia isn’t increasingly antagonistic to US interests, but because it is becoming increasingly less relevant – as a political power or as an attractive emerging market. Russia’s fellow Bric nations may have no interest in dismissing Moscow from their club but the rest of us can (and should) stop speaking of Russia as if it belongs in this company.

There are those in Russia who argue that their country can become a modern European state rather than the “Eurasian nation” of Mr Putin’s dreams. These include some of the reformers around prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, much of Russia’s urban middle class, internet and social media-savvy young people, a new generation of entrepreneurs fed up with byzantine restrictions and regulations, intellectuals and much of the media. Members of all these groups want a democratic Russia with an innovative, modern economy driven by private sector ingenuity, and they have recently taken to the streets to make themselves heard.

For the moment, the Kremlin has managed to ignore these voices, acting like neither a Bric nor a G8 member in good standing. Washington should not make the same mistake. If US and European leaders genuinely want to build new ties with Moscow, these are the people they should be talking to.The writers are president of Eurasia Group and chairman of Roubini Global Economics

Obama Overrides Congress to Buy $690 Million Worth of Russian Choppers for Afghan Air Force

April 8, 2013 By Daniel Greenfield Comments (3)

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Apparently America has too many jobs so Obama will be spending taxpayer money to support Russia’s defense industry on behalf of Afghanistan. And he’s doing so over the bipartisan objections of Congress from both the right and left and a ban on buying them written into the NDAA.

The US Department of Defense said Thursday it plans to sidestep a Congressional ban to purchase 30 helicopters from Russian state-owned defense firm Rosoboronexport, despite objections from US lawmakers who allege that the firm has equipped the Syrian government to commit brutal crimes against civilians.

The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, approved by Congress last year, includes an amendment that prohibits financial contracts between the United States and Rosoboronexport, except when the Secretary of Defense determines that such arrangements are in the interest of national security.

The contract totals $690 million, most of which would go to the Russian arms maker, he added.

Aside from throwing almost $700 million to a company owned by the Russian government at a time when Obama has taken a chainsaw to the United States military, subsidizing the Russian defense industry helps it develop more weapons that will be sold to America’s enemies.

That money will help fund R&D for the next generation of weapons that an American military dismantled by Obama will be facing on the battlefield.

Rosoboronexport was originally under US sanctions for doing business with Iran until the ban was lifted. Rosoboronexport is still selling advanced weapons to Iran.

And oh yeah, this was a no bid contract.

The Pentagon didn’t solicit bids from any other company for the helicopters. That “seems just plain stupid,” says Texas Senator John Cornyn, one of nine Republican and eight Democratic senators pressing the U.S. Department of Defense to cancel the deal.

John Pike, director of national security think tank GlobalSecurity.org, says Russia sold Mi-17s to other countries during the Cold War, and that companies other than Rosoboronexport should have secondhand models that could be refurbished: “The notion that you can’t come up with a couple dozen of these puppies in the used helicopter market is hard to believe.”

Well why bother when Barack is willing to be so flexible for Vladimir.

A bipartisan Congressional group wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week in which they objected to the ongoing business relationship between the Russian arms company and the Pentagon. “What is the national security justification of continuing business with Rosoboronexport?” they asked in the letter. “Russia continues to transfer weapons through Rosoboronexport to the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria,” they continued. “Since the Syrian uprising began, Russia has continued to serve as the Assad regime’s chief supplier of weapons, enabling the mass murder of Syrian citizens at the hands of their own government.”

When you’ve got John Cormyn and Rosa DeLauro on the same side, that’s as close to a consensus that you can imagine.